Category: Jobs Wages & Employment

In this article, we will look at the workers’ wages vs the foreign worker levies.

In the chart below, you can see the wages of selected low-wage jobs in Singapore, based on the latest available data – low-wage earners earn below $1,500 in Singapore. Cleaners and construction workers earn about $800 to $850.

You can see that for a cleaner, the employer would have to pay a total of $1,415 for the worker and not the actual wage of $800. This means that of the total cost of the foreign worker, 42% of the cost actually goes to the government. Similarly, for a construction worker, the employer would actually pay 47% of the cost of the foreign worker to the government.

The other way to look at it is this – for a cleaner, the employer has to pay 74% of the wages to the government for the foreign worker levy. For the construction worker, the employer has to pay 88% of the wages to the government for the foreign worker levy.

Thus you can see that over the past few years, because it is cheaper to hire foreign workers, companies would hire foreign workers at low wages and wages have thus been kept at a depressed low level. As such, Singaporeans have to also accept low wages in order to have a job.

And if you look at the proportion of Singaporeans who earn below $1,500, there are 26% who are in low-wage jobs (Chart 4), which is a significant amount. Are the wages of these Singaporeans depressed because of the low-wage situation?

What does the foreign worker levy have to do with the low wages of Singaporeans, you say?

You see – the foreign worker levy has been increasing over the past few years.

In fact, in 2015, the foreign worker levy would have increased to $1,050 for a construction worker.

Thus in Chart 5, you can see that in 2015, for a cleaner, the cost of a cleaner is actually $1,615 and not the $800 that would be paid to the worker. Of the cost, 50% would actually go to the government. For a construction worker, 55% of the cost would actually go to the government!

This means that the employer has to pay 98% of the wage of a cleaner and 124% of the wage of a construction worker to the government as the foreign worker levy. Why is it that the workers are doing the job but the government takes in the chunk of the workers’ wages for doing nothing?

So, why is this worrying? For each worker, instead of the worker benefitting from higher wages over the years for the work that he/she is actually doing, it is the government which is actually benefitting from increasing revenue from the levies by doing nothing and waiting for the money to come in.

Maybe the charts below will make things clearer for you.

If you look at the foreign levy for a cleaner, the levy has increased from $450 to $800 – or 78% (Chart 6).

Do you see the discrepancy? The foreign worker levy for a cleaner went up by 78% but the wages of a cleaner only went up by 7%. For a construction worker, the foreign worker levy went up for 239% but wages only went up by 6%.

So, the government might say that the foreign worker levies is “a pricing mechanism to regulate the number of foreign manpower in Singapore”. But, has the foreign worker levies really helped to “regulate the number of foreign workers in Singapore”?

Not really.

In fact, the number of workers on S Pass has kept increasing (Chart 10).

As such, it is clear that the foreign worker levies do not actually “regulate the number of foreign workers in Singapore”. What is clear is that the foreign worker levies do bring in more and more revenue for the government – from $1.9 billion in 2010 to $2.5 billion in 2011 – and to more than $3 billion now?

What is also clear is that while the government is collecting more revenue from employers, the wages that employers pay to workers have remained stagnant – at around $800 for cleaners and $850 for construction workers.

The question you have to ask is this – why has the government been so resistant towards implementing a minimum wage but has not at all been hesitant to increase the foreign worker levies on companies? If the explanation given to not implementing a minimum wage is that this will add to the cost of companies, then why has the government increased levies by up to 240%? Doesn’t this still add to the cost of the companies anyway?

Now, imagine this – instead of the government asking companies to pay foreign worker levies, these foreign worker levies are given to the workers as wages.

Immediately, you will see that in 2015, instead of workers earning $815, they will earn $1,615. For construction workers, instead of $850, they will earn $1,900. For waiters, instead of $1,300, their wage will cross the $2,000 mark (Chart 13).

For the lowest wage workers, they will immediately see a doubling of their wages!

How will this benefit Singaporeans? When foreign workers are paid higher wages, Singaporeans will not be forced to accept lower wages as well. Singaporeans will be able to receive higher wages. So a Singaporean who works as a cleaner will be able to earn $1,615, a waiter will be able to earn $1,300 and a bus driver would be able to receive a basic salary of $2,300 – all the low wages workers would be able to receive a wage of above $1,500! And this is done without any additional cost – we are simply transferring what is paid to the government back to the worker, who should be rightfully receiving his/her wage. Will we be able to reduce the proportion of Singaporeans earning below $1,500 from the 26% now to less than 10%, or even less than 5%? It is quite likely.

So, when the government “explains” that they cannot implement a minimum wage because it will suddenly increase costs, is this a logical reasoning or is it really an “excuse”? Certainly, if the government has no qualms increasing the foreign levies by up to 240%, cost isn’t a factor that they are concerned for the companies, is it? If the foreign worker levies have no intended effect of reducing foreign worker numbers, but has the very clear effect of increasing government revenue, then quite clearly, increasing government revenue seems to be the more overt intent of the foreign worker levies than to curb foreign worker numbers – which the government clearly has no want to do so anyway, as illustrated by the population white paper.

By artificially imposing the foreign worker levies as a “pricing mechanism”, hasn’t the PAP government intervened in the free market dynamics and upset demand-supply economics? If the government has allowed for demand and supply to determine wages, instead of artificially imposing a “pricing mechanism” in the form of foreign worker levies, would demand-supply have been better able to determine the equilibrium wage to be paid in each job sector, and push wages upwards to benefit workers?

In imposing the foreign worker levies and artificially depressing the wages of workers, while increasing the levies and the revenues collected by the government, has the government acted to “rob” the wages that should have rightfully gone to the workers? Is such direct government intervention a key reason why the wages of Singaporeans have remained stagnant, and why the real wages have in fact declined?

It would seem quite clear at this point that if the government doesn’t seem to be too concerned about the cost constraints of companies, that implementing a minimum wage isn’t something too difficult for them to do. The question then isn’t about whether there are practical difficulties to do so, but whether the PAP government has the political will to do so and to help Singaporeans, or whether the government is more keen to restructure the policies to increase revenue to their own coffers.

I think the fact that the PAP government has allowed wages to remain stagnant while increasing foreign worker levies (and government revenue) even to amounts over and above what would be paid to the worker is a very clear indicator as to where their priority lies. Perhaps the PAP government has forgotten this – they can continue to treat workers as singular digits to be used and discarded, but don’t forget who is doing the work for you. Don’t forget who is helping you build and clean the buildings and train lines you earn the money from. Without the workers, you will have no money to earn. It would bode well for the PAP to learn to respect those who have helped them, and not cast them aside once they are no longer of use to the PAP.

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Empowering Singaporeans had just organised our first workshop – Towards a Better Education System – last week. We will be holding the next workshop to discuss about the jobs, wages and employment situation in early 2014.

Thus there is huge pay disparity between Singaporeans of different educational qualifications, which is concerning because such an indefinite policy measure would only result in entrenched divisions among the people in Singapore and create artificial social divisions.

(B) The wages of workers with polytechnic diploma or lower would remain stagnant or drop over time, as they age

However, the policy discrimination isn’t only reflected in educational discrimination, but in age discrimination as well.

And because only the pay of university degree graduates are likely to increase over time, the wage disparity over time thus widens further (Chart 4). A university degree graduate in Singapore would earn 6.2 times higher than someone with a below upper secondary school education, whereas this is only 1.6 times in Denmark.

Not only that, the second 20% poorest have only a 9% share of all income – the lowest among all the high-income countries as well, and the third 20% in the middle-income group have only a 15% share of all income – also the lowest!

In short, the poorest 60% in Singapore have only 29% of the wealth – the lowest of all the high-income countries (Chart 7)! Can you imagine that – 60% of the population in Singapore and they don’t even have one-third of the total income in Singapore!

The comparison from Charts 5 to 7 for Singapore’s statistic is from 1998, the last year where this data is publicly available.

However, since then, the income inequality in Singapore has risen dramatically – we are now the country among the high-income countries with the highest income inequality (Chart 8), and one of the highest in the world.

Quite contrary to what the Singapore prime minister had said, the poor in Singapore are much worse off than the poor in other high-income countries, and are poor by any international standards! The statistics fly in the face of what the prime minister had said! Is this complete bullocks?

How does the PAP government intend for Singaporeans to live adequately if they continue to pursue policies which depress the wages of Singaporeans and the workers in Singapore, whilst contributing the lowest returns to Singaporeans’ CPF, while forking out the least for the health spending for Singaporeans? How can the government continue to expect Singaporeans to pay for the second most expensive public universities in the world, while Singaporeans receive the lowest proportion of scholarships, while also accumulating debt at a very young age even before we start work, and where whence we start, are faced with one of the world’s highest cost of living and highest prices in the world, on marginal wages?

The PAP’s Policies Will Lead to the Downfall of Singapore

What’s more, where policies have created such distinct educational pathways where Singaporeans seemingly end up in fixed career paths in life, the wage divide that follows us for the rest of our lives, serves only to entrench the unevenness and inequality further. Coupled with stagnant and declining wages as one grows older and an estimated 28% of Singaporeans living in poverty, the plight of Singaporeans is in indeed in danger.

And on top of all of the above, the lives of lower-income Singaporeans may be further compromised by the Government, from a cashflow perspective – not spending a single cent on healthcare, CPF and HDB.

If it is not already apparent to the PAP government, the episodes and revelations over the past one year – the strike and riot, and calls to implement a minimum wage and to define a poverty line – are signs of the burgeoning needs of a populace who are already on the brink of social meltdown and if the PAP continues to ignore the screaming needs of the populace, such ignorance and strident denial will only serve to mark the end of the PAP’s demise in no uncertain terms.

Perhaps such is the evolution of power and societal change where time and again, history has shown, that if power is allowed to consume the will of individuals, that the only path to be ridden is one of downfall and then renewal, and Singapore does not seem to be immuned to the fate that has befallen all other political regimes and societies. A much needed breath of fresh air for the people of Singapore, it would seem, but only when the rot of power corrupted is overcome.

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Empowering Singaporeans had just organised our first workshop – Towards a Better Education System – last week. We will be holding the next workshop to discuss about the jobs, wages and employment situation in early 2014.

As discussed, Singapore’s per capita national income is similar to the Nordic countries. Singapore is also more expensive to live in than Denmark, Finland and Sweden. As such, the relatively low wages in Singapore would be an immense burden to Singaporeans.

But, what is more shocking is that even though Singaporeans earn the lowest wages among the Nordic countries (and the other high-income countries), the Singapore politicians actually earn the highest salaries in the world!

Already, you see that when compared to the Nordic countries, cleaners in Singapore earn 62% to 85% lower than the cleaners in the Nordic countries. Also, Singaporeans’ median wage is also 37% to 66% lower than that in the Nordic countries.

But when you compare the pay of Singapore’s prime minister to the other prime ministers in the Nordic countries, the Singapore prime minister earns the highest salary and not only that, but earns 527% to 749% more than them (Chart 2)!

What’s more, if you look at the salary per capita paid to the prime ministers, Singaporeans pay between 1035% and 1435% more to the Singapore’s prime minister, than the citizens in the Nordic countries do (Chart 3).

But what exactly might the Singapore prime minister mean about not becoming a “mediocre country”?

Singaporeans have been told repeatedly over the years that we need to pay our politicians high salaries to prevent corruption.

Since Singapore and the Nordic countries are and historically been ranked very highly in Transparency International’s index on corruption, Singapore has often been compared with them, and study trips have been made to study their economic and social system, we will now attempt to do a comparative analysis between Singapore and the Nordic countries.

In addition to salaries and corruption, the other dimension of comparison may arguably be the performance of Singapore vis-a-vis the Nordic countries.

Since so much has so often been trumpeted in the media about our world clase rankings in so many things, we will in the interest of brevity, just list some of Singapore’s poor rankings below:

But yet, when you look at the rankings of the Nordic countries, the Nordic countries perform just as admirably! The Nordic countries are among the 15 most competitive countries in the world, Sweden and Finland rank higher than Singapore in terms of innovation, and Denmark and Norway rank at 9th and 15th respectively. In fact, the Nordic countries are ranked the least corrupt in the world, and better than Singapore!

If the Nordic countries are able to achieve all these at only a small fraction of the cost of the Singapore politicians – at only 11% to 16% of what we pay to the PAP politicians, to be exact – then what does it say about the PAP politicians? Are they so inefficient? Are they that unproductive? Are they not able to achieve similar outcomes as the Nordic countries with low costs?

The Neglected Welfare of Singaporeans

But that’s where the similarities between Singapore and the Nordic countries end. As discussed, Singapore is more expensive to live in than Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Not only that, what’s worse, according to the Mercer’s 2012 Cost of Living Survey, Singapore is the 6th most expensive city out of 143 cities in the world, whereas the other cities in the Nordic countries are much cheaper to live in, at 18th for Oslo, Norway; 21st for Copenhagen, Denmark; 46th for Stockholm, Sweden and 65th for Helsinki, Finland – yet Singaporeans earn much lower wages while having to live in a much more costly city. Not only do Singaporeans earn the lowest wages among the high-income countries, we also work the longest hours in world. It is no wonder why Singapore is ranked as having the 2nd highest work stress in Asia, which has also resulted in Singapore having the lowest fertility in the world – out of 224 countries. Interestingly, we also have the 2nd lowest libido, as compared to over 40 countries.

In comparison, the Nordic countries score much better in all these indicators, and not only that, but top of the class in most as well – they work one of the shortest hours in the world and have one of the highest fertility rates among the high-income countries. They are also one of the happiest and freest countries in the world. Yet, they continue to be one of the richest countries in the world, and with one of the most vibrant economies.

Indeed, why are Singaporeans forced to pay the PAP politicians such immensely-inflated wages for such lopsided and disastrous performance? For a nation where our people’s psychological well-being are so heavily compromised and where the social environment is increasingly being unsettled, can Singaporeans still put their trust in a government which knows how only to pay itself such high wages, but perform so poorly in so many indicators which are the true measure of the people’s welfare, and which have been so sorely neglected by the PAP government?

Does Singapore Need Cheaper, Better, Faster Politicians?

Lim Swee Say had been a strident advocate for Cheaper, Better, Faster workers. Perhaps PAP should take a leave out of their own minister without portfolio, and also advocate to become Cheaper, Better, Faster politicians.

Indeed, the Singapore prime minister had said that, “what elected ministers are earning – representatives of the people, serving the people … (are) being paid out of the taxes of the people.” He had also said that, “others may be unhappy that the ministers decide their own salaries”. And the fact of the matter is this – if the PAP politicians are able to function based on the effectiveness and cost savings that the politicians in the Nordic countries are able to do so, we would be able to save about $10 million annually – tax payers’ monies which can go to more useful causes, such as to increase the wages of of low-wage Singaporeans, which are the lowest among the high-income countries.

The Singapore prime minister had also said that, “there are the concerns that highly paid political leaders would lose the ethos of caring for Singaporeans first as their main motivation and priority, and may lose touch with the problems of average families”. But when you look at the low wages of low-wage workers in Singapore, and of the average Singaporean, do you think the politicians are indeed out of touch? Has the excessively-high salaries got into their heads?

Indeed, when the Singapore prime minister had said, “if you have the wrong system of pay, you will have the wrong team,” Singaporeans are now asking the exact same question – has the “system of pay” created a “wrong team” in Singapore?

Have The PAP Politicians Met Their Performance Indicators?

Under the white paper to review the ministerial salaries, it was proposed that “four socio-economic indicators” be used to determine the “National Bonus” to be paid out. Of the indicators, two of them pertain to the real median income growth rate and the real growth rate of the 20th percentile income.

Indeed, this cannot be even more apparent when you look at the chart below – from 1998, you can see that the real median monthly income for the bottom 20% income earners has actually dropped from $809 to $749 in 2009.

Chart 6: The Straits Times

And if indeed the PAP politicians are supposed to ensure the growth of the real median income growth rate and the real growth rate of the 20th percentile income, then why are we paying them such overly-inflated wages for such unsatisfactory performance?

If the real wages of Singaporeans aren’t growing, should the wages of the PAP politicians be severely cut back down for their poor performance? Indeed, was it not the Singapore prime minister who had said that, “if a Minister is negligent or dishonest, then of course, he has to be sacked.” In not meeting two of the four performance indicators, has the PAP politicians been “negligent”?

Finally, could the problem be that ministerial pay is pegged to the “60% of the median income of top 1,000 Singapore Citizens income earners”? A look at Chart 6 would show that the real median monthly income of the top 20% earners have grown. The Lien Centre for Social Innovation and SMU School of Social Sciences had also reported that “incomes of those in the top 20 per cent (had) increased by 27 per cent” from 1998 to 2010.

The chronic problem of the low-wage situation in Singapore has drastic effects, as they are beginning to show in the strike, riot and protests held across the whole of this year. Such sentiments of discontent have been simmering among Singaporeans and workers in Singapore for some time now, and as many observers have rightfully pointed out, the lid might finally begin to blow off.

The detachment that the PAP politicians have shown has only further alienated Singaporeans from them. Low wages, compounded by the colossal wage disparity between the rich and the poor have only further isolated the poor from believing in the government that they had voted in to protect them for.

For disenfranchised low-wage foreign workers who have no rights to representation or union protection, the effects of such underlying tensions are the first to blow. It would be wise to not take the issue lightly by attributing the problem to the over-consumption of alcohol or ghettoisation. Failure to understand the deeper reasons as to the strike and riot would be failure on the part of the government to understand the needs of the populace and anticipate the problems early on, so as to be able to responsibly and amicably resolve them.

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Empowering Singaporeans had just organised our first workshop – Towards a Better Education System – last week. We will be holding the next workshop to discuss about the jobs, wages and employment situation in early 2014.

It was also reported that he had said that, “if the workers have any grievances or unhappiness, they have many avenues through which to seek help — for example, through their unions, the Manpower Ministry or the Migrant Workers Centre.”

Yesterday, we received a pay slip of a foreign worker. The job of the foreign worker is to be a welder and he is paid only $2.25 an hour. His monthly overall wage is only $500.13.

In fact, all the other foreign workers also receive similar monthly wages, an average of $436.75 in a month.

On top of the miserly wages, the workers would also have to pay a penalty fee of $200 if they lose or damage their work permit – which is almost half their monthly wage!

According to the survey by the SMU, it was found that, “the threat of premature repatriation creates a lot of stress”. Also, “having uncleared debts incurred in agents fees also hung heavily over them”. From our understanding, the foreign workers who were being paid only $2.25 an hour had continued to work because of similar fears and had thus kept silent, in spite of the severely low wages and ill-treatment.

Shanmugam might have visited the dormitories to speak to the foreign workers but it is questionable if the foreign workers would have been willing to “voice out any … concerns” about these problems to him, especially under the careful watch of their employers. Indeed, according to the survey, up to 65% of workers have been threatened with repatriation and “such intimidatory behaviour by employers (apparently) seems very common”.

In fact, in 2009, the MOM had “received approximately 3,770 complaints about salary related issues from foreign workers”. However, “only 4 employers were prosecuted for failure to pay salaries in that year”.

Recently, the vice-principal of JurongWestSecondary School, Pushparani Nadarajah had asked, “How many of our leaders and top officers who say that every school is a good school put their children in ordinary schools near their home? (Only) until they actually do so are parents going to buy (it).” Similarly, for the policymakers, how many of them would be willing to earn $2.25 an hour in Singapore? And if not, should they subject the foreign workers to such low pay, or to even deny the problem of low wages? Should they step up their enforcement of wayward employers, instead of prosecute only 0.001% of the employers whom foreign workers have complained about being ill-treated?

In case our policymakers have forgotten, these foreign workers are human as well, and any human being should be treated with the basic respect and dignity that we would want to confer onto ourselves as well.

Indeed, Mahatma Gandhi had also said that, “The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members.”

It would be highly questionable if our policymakers deem it fit to pay themselves the highest political salaries in the world, but pay Singaporeans and foreign workers the lowest wages among the high-income countries. Such exploitation of the workers say a lot about a government, who would rather believe in “growth at all cost”, while allowing the “weakest” to be left behind.

Indeed, Singaporeans have to ask ourselves – if we have a government which would treat the “weakest members” in our society with such disdain that would they treat the citizens with such unkind actions as well, and I think for many Singaporeans, we already have the answer.

Shanmugam had “urged the foreign workers to voice out any other concerns with regards to their wages and living conditions”. Such “evidence” is tons a plenty. Shamugam wouldn’t have needed to visit a few dormitories just to prove the point that foreign workers “have no complaints about working conditions, about salaries, about their employers”. If he had only spoken to the non-governmental organizations such as TWC2 or the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics (HOME), he would have at least heard of some of the 3,770 greivances that the foreign workers in 2009 have.

Perhaps if our politicians would show some measure of civility, we look forward to them taking firmer actions towards errant employers and to improve the wage and living conditions of these foreign workers. The fair treatment of foreign workers in Singapore have larger implications for Singaporeans – it is precisely because the pay of foreign workers have been so heavily depressed that the wages of Singaporeans are depressed and have remained stagnant for the past few years. Singaporeans are forced to accept lower pay, in order to be employed. In order for Singaporeans to receive fairer and more equitable pay, the MOM needs to be firmer in their responsibility to take action against irresponsible employers, and ensure that downstream, workers receive fair compensation for work performed.

Tensions have been brewing for quite a while, and I believe these were sparked off by this bus accident. There have been tensions between migrant workers and bus drivers who ferry them from the industrial areas in the north and west to Little India every Sunday, where they do their shopping and hang out on their day off. I have taken these buses on a few occasions during my research and discovered the drivers tend to be very rude to the migrant workers.

The drivers – some are Singaporeans while others are Malaysian or Chinese – tend to be overworked and underpaid.

This comes one year after more than 170 SMRT bus drivers went on a two-day strike last year. So, are low wages a key reason that have sparked the strike and riot?

Prof Koh had highlighted that bus drivers in Singapore had earned only $1,800, whereas they would earn between $3,910 to $6,260 in the Nordic countries – at least more than 2 times what the bus drivers in Singapore earn (Chart 1).

Chart 1

He had also compared the wages of cleaners – a cleaner in Singapore would earn only $800, whereas they would earn between $2,085 to $5,502 in the Nordic countries, again at least more than 2 times what the cleaners in Singapore earn. Furthermore, cleaners in Norway earn more than 6 times what cleaners in Singapore earn (Chart 2).

Chart 2

Alex Au had pointed out that, “it is well known that low-wage foreign workers don’t have an easy time in Singapore. There’s an undercurrent of grievances stemming from an experience of exploitative behaviour by high-handed bosses and supervisors. Many have reason to feel that they have been chronically cheated of part of their wages.” Indeed, Charan Bal had also said that the bus drivers “tend to be overworked and underpaid”.

No doubt, low wages and oppressive working conditions are indefinitely a major contributing factor to the largest industrial action and civil resistance in Singapore over the past two years. Thus it would be insightful as to what the Committee of Inquiry that has been set up to investigate the riot would report, or not.

When we compare the wages of low-wage workers with the per capita national incomes, the wage inequality becomes even more apparent. Indeed, it is the case that the richer a country is, the higher the wage a worker can receive in the country. Yet, why does Singapore buck the trend and pay our cleaners such low wages even though we have such a high per capita national income which is on par with the Nordic countries (Chart 3)?

Chart 3

Why do we also pay our bus drivers such low wages, even though based on our per capita national income, Singapore should be paying our low-wage workers much higher wages (Chart 4)?

Chart 4

Perhaps what would put the nail in the coffin once and for all to the argument is when we look at the cost of living, as compared to the Nordic countries.

Yet, low-wage workers in Singapore are paid much lower wages than their counterparts in the Nordic countries. Cleaners in Finland earn 161% more than cleaners in Singapore. In Sweden, this is 358% more, 584% more in Norway and 588% in Denmark (Chart 6).

Chart 6

In other words, even though Singapore is more expensive than Finland, Sweden and Denmark, our cleaners earn a massive 62% lower than cleaners in Finland, 78% lower than Sweden and 85% lower than Denmark (Chart 7)! Yet, are cleaners expected to have a standard of living that is on par with the Nordic countries or even respectable by any standards? This is not forgetting that in the Nordic countries, the people are able to receive free healthcare and education – something which can be even considered a luxury for the low-wage workers in Singapore!

Chart 7

Wages and cost of living aside, we may also need to address the issues of very long working hour and poor working and living conditions, particularly of low-wage foreign workers in Singapore. For example, a company which won a top entrepreneur award was also one of two companies that were fined after the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) found workers living in unacceptable conditions.

The chronic problem of low wages in Singapore is real. Very clearly, the significantly lower wages and higher prices in Singapore means that when compared to the Nordic countries, the purchasing power of Singaporeans is much diminished. The very simple question to ask is this – if prices are so sky-high in Singapore, and wages are rock-bottom, then what does it mean to the livelihoods of Singaporeans, whom many would have to scrape by to make ends meet?

The strikes and riots are only the beginnings of what is to come of the effects of the larger undercurrent of income inequality and unfair wages that are being paid to workers in Singapore, and if we choose to ignore the real causes – of low wages and oppressive work conditions – and attribute them to lesser factors, such as the overuse of alcohol, the denial of the root causes to the most massive industrial action and civil resistance in Singapore’s recent history will only result in further social unrest, as workers fight back against inequality, and oppressive and unfair treatment.

It is of no use to show statistics that may give the perception that wages are rising immensely, when they are actually not. And as long as the government does not take concrete actions to allow labour unions to be independent and allow them to engage in collective wage bargaining, and/or to implement a minimum wage, to increase the wages of workers in Singapore, Singaporeans can tell for themselves whether their pay has actually increased.

The strikes and riots are only symptomatic as to the larger social effects that will come, if the government doesn’t respond appropriately to the needs of Singaporeans and workers here. Further denial will indefinitely result in much larger social movements, which would undoubtedly overshadow the strike and riot, and the four major protests that have already been held in opposition to the Population White Paper and the Licensing Rule this year. Together, more than 10,000 Singaporeans have joined the protests this year. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to imagine that this figure would be easily overcome at next year’s protests or protests held closer to the next general election, at the rate that things are going.

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Empowering Singaporeans had just organised our first workshop – Towards a Better Education System – last week. We will be holding the next workshop to discuss about the jobs, wages and employment situation in early 2014.